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This World Refugee Day, make sure the world never forgets.

It’s been just one week since we launched our first-ever Kickstarter, and I have wonderful news to share with you: 2,720 people have pledged to Save Their Stories. It’s a strong start—but to share over 200 Holocaust diaries in the Museum’s collection with the world and make them accessible, we still need your help.

In the years leading up to and during World War II, the world turned a blind eye to the fate of refugees who were fleeing unimaginable circumstances such as forced labor and starvation at the hands of Nazis and their collaborators. Never again can any of us turn a blind eye.

Today, on World Refugee Day, help share the stories of people who survived the Holocaust as refugees.

Visit our Kickstarter Project Page to bring these stories to light and help the world learn from these first-hand accounts.
At every level of support, you will receive meaningful, inspiring rewards you won’t find anywhere else.

If we reach our goal, you’ll not only help us catalog hundreds of personal accounts and make them searchable on our website, we will also translate and publish online three diaries in their entirety. One was written by Hans Vogel who, at the age of seven, escaped from Germany to France with his parents and elder brother. They initially settled in Paris, but in May 1940, just 24 hours before the invading German forces reached their city, the Vogel family fled south. They traveled among a stream of other refugees, mostly by foot, as the Luftwaffe fired at them from the sky. Hans kept an extraordinary diary of their flight, including photos and hand-drawn and colored maps tracing the family’s journey.

Help share his story by becoming a Kickstarter backer. Your support is instrumental to making one-of-a-kind diaries like his available to the public for the very first time. Plus with your pledge, you can choose from special rewards, exclusive to this Kickstarter project—rewards such as “Save Their Stories” tote bag, limited-edition watercolor prints from Holocaust survivor Simon Jeruchim, a “Save Their Stories” journal, exclusive behind-the-scenes tours at the Museum, and much more.

But even more so, you’ll be helping the world learn from and remember the individual experiences of Holocaust victims and survivors: their hopes and fears, their courage in the face of unspeakable terror, their suffering and resilience.

Check out the Save Their Stories Kickstarter Project Page now to see how your support is essential to preserving the stories of survivors for the whole world to see. And if you’ve already made your pledge, thank you again for your support! Please help us one more time by spreading the word about this project on Facebook and Twitter to family and friends today, in honor of World Refugee Day.